Category: TV Shows I Love

The Good Doctor

Doogie Howser + House + Autism. It’s nice to see more TV shows featuring autistic characters in a normal way, not as victims or villains but as people. While I can’t speak to how true the portrayal of the main character’s autism is, the pilot is full of compelling characters with an interesting story. While the board at Shaun Murphy’s (Freddie Highmore, aka Norman Bates from the Bates Motel TV series) new hospital debates whether to allow a surgical resident with autism, Shaun saves a young boy’s life at the airport using MacGyver’d surgical tools. In standard trope fashion, the video of Shaun’s miraculous save makes it online and the board has to accept him, at least temporarily, or face bad publicity.read more

The first two episodes of The CW’s new TV show based on the Archie comics are out and I’m really loving it. I only read a few of the comics as a kid, but I’ve been meaning to read more since the introduction of Kevin Keller, a character that’s seemingly out of place in the Pleasantville-esque idyllic Riverdale but so, so needed. If you are a fan of the comics, be warned that this is not the same Riverdale you know from the comics but instead something much better.

The show starts with the apparent murder of Jason Blossom, one of the Blossom twins. He drowned when the boat the twins were on tipped over but that’s just the start of the mystery. As the first episode progresses, we’re introduced to all of our expected characters. Betty’s mooning over her long-time crush, Archie, to her gay best friend, Kevin. Veronica has just moved to town with her mother following her parents’ messy separation. Jughead provides the narrator as he turns the mystery of Jason Blossom’s death into the centerpiece for the novel he’s writing on Riverdale.read more

The latest in an awesome line of Marvel-Netflix collaborations dropped on Friday and I have devoured the show, mostly thanks to obsessed friends who wanted to binge on it and also thanks to a weekend with very little in the way of plans. We started watching early Saturday and then finished up at 1am this morning, with interruptions for sleep, food, shopping, and gaming. So, what did I think of it?

It was an impressive use of a diverse cast and I wish that such casting was less of an exception to the status quo. I’m white, but damn am I tired of seeing shows full of pasty white people when there are so many ethnicities that are underrepresented. Luke Cage, which is set in Harlem, is blissfully free of more than a few token white people and I love that. Mike Coulter is amazing as Luke Cage. His presence is like a wall, strong and powerful, just like the character is supposed to be. You can bash yourself against that wall all you want, but it won’t move and it won’t break. Rosario Dawson is brilliant and a sweetheart as Claire Temple. She’s definitely my favorite female character, though the side character Aisha came across strongly for me. I could see Aisha dawning spandex to fight crime with a baseball bat, being as bad-ass as anyone else on the streets.read more